Background: This study examines the effect of test anxiety on the academic performance of postgraduate female students, focusing on their perceptions and experiences in open-book exams (OBE) and closed-book exams (CBE). Method: A qualitative case study design was employed using the Thinking Aloud Protocol (TAP) to collect data from five Saudi…

Our study aims to determine how Habermas' construct of rationality can serve to identify and interpret the difficulties experienced by university students in the mathematical problem-solving process. To this end, a problem which required modelling and solving a differential equation was used. The problem-solving processes of university students…

Students studying organic chemistry often have difficulty applying prior knowledge from general chemistry in their thinking about organic reaction mechanisms. In the United States, electrophilic aromatic substitution (EAS) mechanisms can be taught towards the end in a second-semester course of organic chemistry, providing students with almost…

Language is often depicted as the sine qua non of mathematical thinking, a view buttressed by findings of language-of-training effects among bilinguals. These findings, however, have been limited to studies of arithmetic. Nothing is known about the potential influence of language on the ability to learn rules about the relations among variables…

Studies related to school mathematics have shown that students who scored well on standardized tests often are unable to successfully use memorized facts and formulae in real-life application outside the classroom. The outcome of TIMSS and PISA studies further emphasizes the importance of mathematics teaching and learning in the Malaysian…

Despite recent investments in and rapid modernization of university campuses in places like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, higher education in the Middle East still faces many obstacles. One of the greatest has been a fundamental disconnect between education and employment, a possible factor contributing to many of the recent riots in the Arab World. In…

Normally achieving students (n=119) and students with mild handicaps (n=83) in grades 3-6 were instructed to create and answer computation items similar to samples given. Students with mild handicaps understood item characteristics enough to create like items, though averaging three years behind normal achievers. A sample instructional activity is…